Organization

Research Group for PartitioningT.Matsumura

Spent fuel from nuclear power plants contains uranium, plutonium and long lived radioactive nuclides. Uranium and plutonium are recovered by reprocessing process for reuse as energy resource for nuclear power plants, the long lived nuclides, such as minor actinides, are separation by partitioning process for the mitigation of the burden for the geological disposal of the nuclear waste. The chemical processes are based on solvent extraction technique which has high selectivity and decontamination performance.

Research Group for Partitioning aims at improvement of reprocessing process and establishment of partitioning process using novel extractants. The novel extractants, which has high selectivity of actinide elements from spent fuel dissolved solution and high level liquid waste, have been studied and evaluated applicability for practical separation processes. The separation processes have been designed using process simulation based on the data from the basic research on the extractants, and tested by the flowsheet experiments. The experiments using minor actinides and high level liquid waste in glove boxes and hot cells has been performed.